Being, Humanity, and Understanding: Studies in Ancient and Modern Societies PDF
Preview Being, Humanity, and Understanding: Studies in Ancient and Modern Societies
Being, Humanity, and Understanding This page intentionally left blank Being, Humanity, and Understanding Studies in Ancient and Modern Societies G. E. R. LLOYD 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,OxfordOX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversitypressintheUKandincertainothercountries #G.E.R.Lloyd2012 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2012 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable ISBN 978–0–19–965472–7 PrintedinGreatBritainby MPGBooksGroup,BodminandKing’sLynn Linkstothird-partywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythird-partywebsitereferencedinthiswork. CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter1 Humanitybetweengodsandbeasts? 8 Chapter2 Error 31 Chapter3 Ancientunderstandingsreassessedand theconsequencesforontologies 46 Chapter4 Languageandaudiences 72 Chapter5 Philosophicalimplications 93 Epilogue 113 GlossaryofKeyChineseTermsandNames 120 Bibliography 123 Index 133 This page intentionally left blank Introduction IN Cognitive Variations (Lloyd 2007), I combined an examination of some recent work in cognitive science with a discussion of historical data, notably from ancient Greece and China, in an endeavour to clarifysomeofthedeep-seated,butinmyviewoftenoversimplified, issues between cross-cultural universalists and cultural relativists on the unity and diversity of human cognition. In this study I use the same tactic, of juxtaposing the investigation of the ancient and the modernworld,inanefforttothrowlightontheextraordinarilyrich, butatthesametimeprofoundlypuzzling,varietyofwhatwemaycall cosmologies that are attested whether in our historical sources or in present-day ethnographic reports. In some instances these views are spelt out and provided with a rationale that we can try to come to termswith.Inotherstheyarejusttakenforgranted.Inbothtypesof casetheyoftendefycomprehension,despitetheapparentfamiliarity of some of their assumed components, the concepts of nature and of culture,forinstance. The ideas in question may be about the world, the environment, aboutourselvesandourrelationswithothercreaturesonearth,about spiritsandgods,andnotjustabouttheanimateworld,butalsoabout its relations with the inanimate and on whether there is any clear boundarybetweenthetwo.Beingisnotagiven(howevertemptingit maybetoassumeitis)butaproblem,andsotooishumanity,thatis, what counts as being human and on what grounds, and with what implications for how we should behave. The third main topic on my agenda is understanding itself, both our understanding of the world, and more particularlyourunderstanding ofother peopleand ofhow theyhaveunderstoodtheworld.Wealluselanguagetotalkaboutthe world, but how should we think of the two as connected? That question, among many others, has been much debated, especially 2 | Being,Humanity,andUnderstanding thoughnotexclusivelyinWesternphilosophy.Myaimistobroaden thescopeoftheinquirytoencompassalsowhatotherpeoples,atother placesandtimes,havebelievedorassumedonalltheseissues. Theevidenceavailabletoethnographersandtohistoriansdiffers,of course,thoughtheproblemsbothfacearesufficientlysimilar(Iwould claim) to justify my engaging in an investigation that spans both domains. Ethnographers enter into dialogue with their subjects and checktheirreactionstotheinterpretationsthoseethnographersoffer. Ancient historians cannot do that, but on the other hand often have richsourcesofinformationconcerningthechangesthatoccurred,over centuries,inwhatwasbelievedabouttheproblemsIhavementioned, wheretheycantrytoinvestigatewhysuchchangestookplace. In both history and ethnography we have severe hermeneutic problems in coming to terms with how the world has been under- stood,tothepointwherethequestionhasbeenraisedwhetherindeed itisthesameworldthatisbeingunderstood.Thatisanissuethatwill recur throughout these investigations. The major methodological difficulty, meanwhile, can be expressed in the form of a dilemma. If weapplyourownideasandconceptstotheseothersystemsofbeliefs, is that not bound to distort them? But how can we avoid using our concepts,fortheyaretheonlyoneswehave? Ishallhavequitealottosaybothabouthowtogoaboutthestudy andhownotto,butthenextmajorquestionthathastobeconfronted is: to what end? What purpose does it serve to wrestle with strange andexoticideas,evenifwecanbegintounderstandthem?Certainly whenthehistoryofsciencefirstbegan,itwasstudiedinordertochart the onward and upward march of human progress. Early ethnogra- phy, similarly, was often geared to demonstrating the primitiveness of the societies studied and by contrast the civilized character of the societies to which the ethnographers themselves belonged. Such tri- umphalistattitudesarenolongeracceptable.Insciencewehavemore predecessorstodrawon,butwhocansaywearemoreintelligentthan they? With the events of the twentieth century still vivid in our memories,wecancertainlynotsaythatwearesanerhuman beings, better able to organize our affairs, than those who used to be looked down on as archaic or primitive. Nor has the twenty-first century begunexactlyauspiciously. Butifsciencecanbesaidtohavemovedon,whystudytheendea- vours of the past, or those of groups who do not participate in the Introduction | 3 modernindustrializedscientificenterprise,forallthattheymayhave been highly intelligent people who were responsible? There are two partstotheanswer.First,wherethephysicalworldisconcerned,itisfar from the case that the whole of ancient, or of modern pre-literate, knowledgecanbedismissedasmerelyarchaic,superseded,anderrone- ous.Manypeopleshaveachieveddeepunderstandingoftheirnatural environment,andsophisticatedmathematicsandastronomyare,aswe shallsee,tobefoundinancientcivilizationsalready. Secondly, and more importantly, every society poses, for us, the problems not just of what its members came up with, by way of understandings of the world around them, but also of how they saw theirownplaceinthatworld,theirhumanityinotherwords,andhow they should live their lives. These are difficult questions and we often have to admit that clear answers are not forthcoming. Even more problematic are issues to do with the extent to which beliefs aresubjecttochangeandmodification,atleastinthosesocietieswhere thereisdiachronicevidencewecanusetoaddressthequestion.How far were traditional ideas and practices, and the authorities who perpetuated them, open to challenge and in what circumstances did that happen? We have ample testimony, for ancient societies, concerning the impact of political, religious, ideological, and institu- tional factors on the investigations that were pursued, but similar influences are at work on our own scientific and other inquiries today, different though they are in many respects from those of our predecessors. To cite just the most banal example, do not modern authoritiesinsistonresultsthattheyassessofteninthemostsimplis- ticmaterialistterms? Ihavespoken,byimplication,ofthehistoryofancient‘science’,but afurtherimportantquestionthatwillconcernmeiswhatwemeanby thatterm.Ihaveargued,onotheroccasions(Lloyd2009),againstthe narrow, admittedly conventional, view that has it that we cannot properly talk of science before the seventeenth century when it was a development that originated in, and was for long confined to, Europe. Throughout these studies I advocate and adopt a far broader conception, closer to the French ‘science’ or German ‘Wissenschaft’ than to our own English usage when we have the modern natural sciencesinmindastheparadigmatic,ifnotindeedthesole,claimants totitle.Science,here,Itaketocovereveryattemptsystematicallyto investigate the phenomena, to observe, classify, predict, and explain
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